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About the Ranch

I have been involved in raising cattle for 35 years, since high-school; I am a second-generation rancher managing the farm started by my father, a pioneer of cattle raising in Israel.
After a 3-year service in the special forces of the Israel Defense Forces, and a tenure in business - I was given the management reigns in 1997.

Erez Cahaner, Manager

In 1997 when I took over this herd of 125 head... 

...it needed a lot of attention due to its poor health and weak financial performance; it was suffering from a low fertility rate, and a 20% miscarriage rate due to parasites and lice that infested the terrain.
    Feed was not utilized well, despite over-feeding - raising costs to unsustainable levels. The fit between the terrain and the herd was not good, and the plots of land were not divided correctly. As a result of this - there were many problems with hoofs and udders.
     In addition, my farm’s terrain is hilly with many ravines; there are no water sources, and due to a dry hot summer lasting 5 months and an annual precipitation of 14 inches - there is very little grass. The abundance of predators caused a 15% mortality rate among calves, and frequent theft did not help the situation.​

Since then I quadrupled the herd size to 600 mature cows (and growing!)

I also tripled the grazing area, and organically raised the value of the ranch 4-fold by implementing the following steps:

- An aggressive selection to improve herd quality
- Correct breeding to optimize the herd to the terrain and climate  
- The development of a natural immune system allowing the herd to remain in pasture year-round
- Shortening the birthing season to keep calves protected from predators until they are 4-5 weeks  old; this brought down the calf predation rate from 15% to <1%
- Division of the ranch to 38 plots to optimize rotational grazing by adding 85 miles of fences
- Construction of 18 miles of water pipes to supply water in each plot
- Water storage systems to provide cool water even when the temperature reaches 115 degrees
- Customized hiring and training of personnel for 20% savings on labor costs vs. the industry.

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